As one example of prior art focusing systems for a zoom lens, an upfront lens focusing system is well-known in the art where the foremost group of lens pieces positioned the closest to the object to photograph is displaced for focusing. When designed in an application of an auto-focusing zoom lens, the upfront lens focusing zoom lens must have its large and heavy foremost lens group moved along the optical axis, and this makes it difficult to achieve instantaneous focusing.
In order to overcome the aforementioned disadvantage, inner and rear focusing systems that force the second foremost lens group and/or the further succeeding one(s) are to be displaced instead have come to be known. Employing the inner or rear focusing system brings about a successful result in achieving an instantaneous auto focusing zoom lens of which focusing lens groups can be generally down-sized and reduced in weight so as to reduce the load on an actuating motor for an auto focusing mechanism.
On the other hand, there generally arises a problem with such an enhanced variable power zoom lens that user's hands are liable to shake during photographing at the telephoto end. In order to avoid the adverse effect on the resultant image due to a shake of photographer's hands, a variety of methods have been devised for displacing part of the lens optics in an approximately perpendicular direction to the optical axis so that rays imaged on light receptor are shifted on the same, thereby canceling an image blur due to a shake of hands of the photographer.
It is also strongly desired that the enhanced variable power zoom lens is compact so as not to spoil user's convenience.
Especially, some digital single lens reflex cameras having the state-of-the-art live view feature carry out contrast auto-focusing, namely, bring rays into focus by wobbling. Hence, the greater weight of the focusing lens group(s) should requires the larger actuator to displace the focusing lens group(s), which results in the focusing systems becoming bulky as a whole; and therefore, it is strongly desirable that the focusing lens group(s) is reduced in weight.
Further developed has been a compact, high performance, and enhanced variable power zoom lens which has lens groups respectively of positive, negative, positive, and positive refractive powers arranged in order for zooming; and this prior art enhanced variable power zoom lens, when attached to a lens-exchangeable digital single lens reflex camera with an APS-C size image sensor built in, attains angle of view as wide as 76 degrees that is equivalent to 28 mm in a single lens reflex camera dedicated for 35 mm film, and zoom ratio as high as 7×, and has back focal equivalent to that of a lens-exchangeable single lens reflex camera (e.g., see Patent Document 1 listed below).
Some other prior art enhanced variable power zoom lens developed so far includes a photographing lens that has anti-vibration function and improved performance and that has lens groups respectively of positive, negative, negative, positive, negative, and positive refractive powers for zooming or otherwise positive, negative, negative, positive, positive refractive powers for the same purpose where the third foremost lens group is used for focusing while the fifth lens group is dedicated to anti-vibration operation; and its variable magnification power is super-enhanced to such an extent of being as high as approximately 12× without compromising a capability of inner-focusing to photograph a proximal object (e.g., see Patent Document 2).
Still another prior art enhanced variable power zoom lens is the one that is as high as 10× in zoom ratio and that has lens groups respectively of positive, negative, positive, negative, and positive refractive powers for zooming; that is, the lens groups consists of at least the 1st lens group G1 of positive refractivity, the 2nd lens group G2 of negative refractivity, the 3rd lens group G3 of positive refractivity, the 4th lens group G4 of negative refractivity, and the 5th lens group G5 of positive refractivity arranged in order from a position closer to the object where as the photographing mode is shifted from the wide-angle to the telephoto to vary the magnification power, the 1st lens group G1 and the 2nd lens group G2 spread farther apart from each other, the 2nd lens group G2 and the 3rd lens group G3 come closer to each other, the 3rd lens group G3 and the 4th lens group G3 also spread farther apart from each other, and the 4th lens group G4 and the 5th lens group G5 come closer to each other (e.g., see Patent Document 3).
Further another prior art enhanced variable power zoom lens is the one that consists of four lens groups, namely, the 1st lens group to the 4th lens group respectively having positive, negative, positive, and positive refractive powers in sequence from a position closer to the object; and the 1st and 2nd lens groups separate farther away from each other so as to vary the magnification power from the wide-angle to the telephoto while concurrently the 3rd lens group axially moves to compensate for variation in the image plane in association with varying the magnification power, and the 2nd lens group moves orthogonal to the optical axis and simultaneously makes a minute turn about a single point on the optical axis within or near the 2nd lens group to compensate for a blur of the image; i.e., provided is a method in which the primary power-varying lens group in the positive lead type zoom lens, namely, the 2nd lens group of negative refractivity serves as an anti-vibration lens and moves orthogonal to the optical axis (e.g., see Patent Document 4).
Yet another prior art enhanced variable power zoom lens is the one with the 2nd lens group comprising lens subsets one of which, namely, a non-focusing lens subset 2a serves as an anti-vibration lens; and this zoom lens is compact since displacement of its focusing lens group is not extremely increased during focusing (e.g., see Patent Document 5). The enhanced variable power zoom lens has the 1st lens group of positive refractivity, the 2nd lens group of negative refractivity, and one or more succeeding lens groups of positive refractivity as a whole arranged in sequence from a position closer to one conjugate point as the origin of a longer half of a conjugate distance upon varying the magnification power from the wide-angle to the telephoto, the 1st and 2nd lens groups separate farther apart from each other while the 2nd lens group and the succeeding lens group(s) come closer to each other; and the 2nd lens group comprises lens subsets, namely, the lens subset 2a of negative refractivity and another lens subset 2b of negative refractivity closer to the other conjugate point as the terminal point of a shorter half of the conjugate distance than the lens subset 2a so that the lens subset 2b is dedicated to focusing under specific relative conditions among the focal length at the wide-angle end, the focal length at the telephoto end, and the focal length of the lens subset 2a. 
Furthermore, there is another prior art enhanced variable power zoom lens of the reduced variation in image magnification ratio for focusing, which has the 1st lens group of positive refractive power, the 2nd lens group of negative refractive power, and the succeeding two or more lens groups arranged in sequence from a position closer to the object where all the lens groups axially move during zooming so as to vary a distance between any pair of the adjacent lens groups while the second rearmost lens group closer to the image plane axially move for focusing (e.g., see Embodiment 7 in Patent Document 6 listed below). This enhanced variable power zoom lens has the downsized focusing and anti-vibration lens groups although it still attains an enhanced zoom ratio as high as lox.